


In the Beginning

by Katsuko



Series: The Right of All [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Medic!Starscream, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-20
Updated: 2011-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsuko/pseuds/Katsuko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He first met the mech after one of his first gladiatorial bouts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Follow-up of sorts to The Right of All. There will probably be more stories in this universe.
> 
> Originally posted online 20 January 2011.

The first time they'd met was after one of his first forays in the gladiatorial ring.

He'd won his match, that much was true, but he'd taken some heavy damage and Clench didn't seem to be too bothered with getting him repaired. So he had been settling in to attempt his own repairs when Blitz wandered by, fresh from his own match and sporting injuries. The mech glanced at him, paused, then stopped completely.

"The slag're you doing?" the mech asked gruffly.

Megatron gave the other a look that said he thought Blitz was a moron for even asking. "What does it _look_ like I'm doing?"

The shorter mech shook his head and reached out, grabbing the former miner's arm and hauling him to his pedes. "Don't try to fix your own damage," he said, "ever. It just torques Wings off and then we have to listen to him glitch forever. C'mon."

"Wings?" Megatron found himself asking even as he followed the older gladiator further underground, wondering why Clench had never mentioned these tunnels.

"Yeah, s'what we call him most of the time," Blitz replied. "The owners don't know about him, so we don't talk about him around 'em. He slipped down here one night after someone got royally fragged up in a bout, fixed him up, and now pretty much refuses to leave for longer than it takes for a quick flight or to pick up supplies."

By this point they'd reached their destination, a room that opened up at the end of the tunnel before branching out into corridors once again. A couple of mechs that Megatron knew for a fact had been injured in earlier rounds were settled around the room, all fully repaired except for a greyed-out arm on one that was slowly taking on color, but what caught his attention was the mech who must be the one Blitz was talking about.

"I didn't know seekers spent time underground," he commented quietly to his companion.

"Most don't," an unfamiliar, mildly raspy voice replied, making it clear that Megatron hadn't spoken quietly enough. "They prefer being under the stars and nothing else. I, on the other hand, used to travel off-world in a friend's cargo hold, so enclosed space doesn't bother me. What got ripped off today, Blitzwing?" he added as he turned to assess them both with a critical optic.

Megatron tuned out Blitz's reply ( _Blitzwing?_ He had thought that _Blitz_ was the mech's full designation...) in order to study the seeker. The mech was a bit smaller than he would have expected seekers to be, but he'd only ever seen them at a distance so this Wings mech could very well be the norm for that class of warrior-cast. He kept his wings held at an angle that spoke of confidence, the rest of his frame reflecting the rigid control that came with war academy training. His coloration was oddly striking, silver-white with red torso plating and blue forearms, hands, and pedes and corresponding stripes in the same shades on those impressive wings.

Yet what struck the young gladiator most was the mech's optics. It wasn't the color that drew one's attention, not at all; it was the hint of compassion that lingered in Wings' crimson gaze, even when he looked at Blitz like he felt the gladiator was completely glitched.

It took some time to get to know the mech, but given how often he walked out of the ring injured but online Megatron had the time to spare. He learned that the seeker's given designation was Starscream, that he'd been a scientist before being ejected from the science council for events beyond his control (he never went into detail on it, and Megatron knew better than to torque off the medic), that he'd been trained at the war academy as a military medic yet was at loose ends until he opted to stick around the gladiatorial ring.

"If one of those civilian-casts was to be terminally damaged on the street and his choice was to wait for a civilian medic to come along or allow me to do the necessary repairs," Starscream had told him once while rewiring his right arm, "the idiot would prefer to deactivate while waiting for someone other than me to assist him. It doesn't say good things about the future of Cybertron."

Megatron had filed that away for later thought. It didn't take long for him to come to the conclusion that _every_ aspect of life on Cybertron during this so-called Golden Age catered to the civilian-cast and forced all others – warriors, gladiators, miners, shuttles, anyone who had to work in order to keep themselves fueled – to live in the gutter. He decided it was time to do something about it, and covertly began recruiting an army from the gladiators around him. The owners were, of course, kept in the dark, and the arrival of a senator's aide to the fold was a welcome surprise. Megatron had no doubts that he could build a viable command structure just from those currently around him.

Which was why he had to recalibrate his audio receptors and ask Starscream to repeat himself.

"I said _no_ ," the seeker said again, confirming that Megatron hadn't misheard him as he moved around his makeshift repair bay. "I was trained at the war academy, yes, but I'm not a frontliner by any stretch of the imagination."

"I'm going to need an air commander," Megatron insisted, knowing that he was repeating himself yet not concerned with that fact. "And I need someone I know and trust to be my second if this goes as far as I think it will."

Starscream set down the welder he was holding and turned to face the gladiator. "Yes, you will. But I'm a medic. My place isn't out there," he said, waving one arm towards the corridor that led to the upper levels and the ring itself. "It's back here, making sure that everyone who survives actually does survive to fight another cycle. My function is to treat the wounded and send them back out, to keep them going when there's no battles to be fought. I cannot, I _will not_ be the one to order them into battle in the first place. So no, I cannot be your air commander or second in command.

"But I _will_ be your medic."

Megatron was willing to compromise. The seeker would be his chief medical officer and have the power to override his own orders in issues regarding the well-being of any of his fledgling army, and in return Megatron would keep the one mech who didn't look at him and see either a miner or gladiator or commander close at hand.

Friends were hard enough to come by. He wasn't willing to lose the only one he had.


End file.
